The Dichotomy of Leadership

Book excerpt: THE INSTANT #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER From the #1 New York Times bestselling authors of Extreme Ownership comes a revolutionary approach to help leaders recognize and attain the leadership balance crucial to victory. More than three million readers of Extreme Ownership learned to apply combat-proven leadership lessons from authors Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. Now, in the new edition of the sequel, Willink and Babin dive deeper into the most challenging aspect of leading people: The Dichotomy of Leadership. This most difficult—and essential— element of leadership requires finding the balance between the forces that pull at every leader in opposite directions. Humbling lessons learned in combat and in teaching leadership to the next generation of SEAL leaders, highlighted for the authors with crystal clarity what works and what doesn’t. As leadership consultants to over 1600 companies and organizations across the U.S. and multiple countries, they have worked with thousands of leaders across the full spectrum of industries in the business world. Through dynamic examples from their combat and training experiences in the SEAL Teams and vignettes from the business arena, Willink and Babin demonstrate how each leadership concept applies on the battlefield, in business, and in life. With a new Foreword and Q&A section, this revised edition of Dichotomy provides the crucial insight and awareness necessary for leaders to understand when to lead and when to follow, when to focus and when to detach, when to tighten the reins and when to let the team run, when to aggressively maneuver and when to be prudent. In The Dichotomy of Leadership, the authors deliver a book that rivals Extreme Ownership with life-changing guidance that should be essential reading for every leader and every team for generations. Understanding how to maintain balance enables leaders to most effectively lead, accomplish their mission, and achieve the ultimate goal of every team: Victory.